


It's like I'm wearing red

by det395



Category: The Handmaid's Tale (TV)
Genre: F/F, Psychological Trauma, Recovery, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2019-06-17 18:21:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15467265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/det395/pseuds/det395
Summary: Emily is in Canada now. Safe.Gilead still follows her everywhere, the fear, paranoia, uncertainty, her scars and mutilations a constant reminder. How does she love the people around her, how does she let anyone touch her?The road to recovery.





	It's like I'm wearing red

She lets Sylvia hold her now. Wrapped up in a warm comforter to protect from the cold Canadian air blowing in. Sylvia used to open all the windows like this in Montana, too. She said it made their nest under the blankets that much cozier. Emily used to love the excuse to cling onto Sylvia, legs wrapped around her with a cheek pressed against her soft breast. It made her feel small and protected.

 

In this moment, she feels small and protected again, almost overwhelmingly so. It brings a rush of emotions up her throat and makes her eyes moist. This has been happening a lot, whenever she lets reality wash over her. She tries to distance herself from those feelings. She knows no one else would understand it, but sometimes it just feels like too much. Good or bad.

 

Emily pulls back a few inches to look at Sylvia. She lets Emily set the space between them. She’s so careful now. Treating Emily like fine china that could shatter at any time.

 

They both have a few more wrinkle lines on their face, Emily has no doubt they aged twice as fast in the last few years. Endocrine interactions and all that.

 

As if reading her mind, Sylvia says, “So beautiful. Still so beautiful and strong,” with a warm smile. A hand raises slowly to stroke her cheek, but it takes an effort to not move away. Aunt Lydia was a fan of this kind of gentle affection, making her seem maternal and sweet before the violence came out.

 

She shook her head as if to really snap herself out of it. She was stuck in this weird limbo where she could almost grasp the lovely comfort of her old life and love before falling into a pit of despair for the world and her trauma.

 

A hand reaches to her waist and she flinches. Sylvia pulls away as though she’s been burned.

 

“Sorry, you initiate any touch, okay? If you want,” Sylvia says. Emily just nods. She doesn't want to reply when she wouldn’t be able to say the right thing.

 

How does she describe the permanent guard, how every creak of the floor and look from a stranger sets her adrenaline off? She wants a gun on her hip at all times, but to ask would make her a danger to everyone.

 

She knows she must not look too dangerous, eyes big and pleading for understanding.

 

***

 

Her wife’s arms are a scary comfort, one she isn't sure she really has. She had dreams like these for weeks, dreams that everything was okay. She could wake up anytime and be back in hell. She wouldn’t let anyone touch her for the first five days of refuge because of it. One touch and she would know if this reality was fake or not.

 

Her son is here. He is going to school, he has friends, he plays soccer sometimes. He recognizes her because of the photos Sylvia has all around the apartment. He sees her as a stranger he looks up to, she can tell. A carbon copy of her own big, blue eyes stare up at her with wonderment and fear in his quivering lip.

 

She would have to heal for him. She can't pass on her trauma to such a young boy.

 

***

 

“The paperwork is easy. Canada has been good at getting families together again.” Sylvia mutters after swallowing her food down. A question forms through Emily’s eyebrows.

 

They are at the dinner table. Mac-and-cheese fills her plate and she knows it's because Sylvia planned out all of her favourite dishes. This was an especially nostalgic one, from graduate school times. Microwaveable pasta was about all she had time for back then, but this meal is meticulously prepared, oven baked with bread crumbs on top. It’s an easy indulgence.

 

“If you will be my wife again, I mean. Technicalities of it.” Sylvia’s eyes are big, a little nervous perhaps.

 

She listens to the muffled TV on for Oliver in the next room over for a moment. He always scarfed down his food and excused himself early to watch one of his cartoons. It's more endearing than it is annoying, at least in the newness of it all.

 

Emily should have seen the nerves and known Sylvia wanted to talk about something. She could read her like it was nothing back in the day.

 

Emily lets a smile creep on her face and she reaches out, clutching onto Sylvia’s hands. Playing with her fingers to feel every part.

 

“A lot has changed.”

 

“I still love you. And it’ll be good for Oliver.” Sylvia is close to pouting at her, Emily can tell. Sylvia wasn’t as expressive as her unless she was sad, then she was like a kicked puppy. She saw that face a lot now.

 

“I never stopped loving _you_ ,” Emily says it fast, determined not to let it be unsure. “But it won’t be the same. I’ve changed a lot, I’ve _done_ things.”

 

She killed a man, felt his head get crushed under a car tire. She had an affair, watching it turn to murder. She killed a Wife, letting her slowly overdose. She might have killed Aunt Lydia. Who knows what that woman can take.

 

She could never have sex again. She was mutilated. She didn’t want anything inside of her again, the thought made bile rise in her throat.

 

“You think I haven’t changed? We’ll learn together. Heal.”

 

“As if I can heal,” Emily snaps, watching Sylvia’s mouth frown instantly.

 

“Keep moving forward, I mean. Please, know I want to understand, _please_ baby. Therapy, time, patience, _anything,_ we’ll do it together. I just need to know you’ll be in my life.”

 

The tears are coming now, fast and accompanied by sobs, wrenching Emily’s chest. Her face is in her hands instantly to muffle it from Oliver just a room over. Arms go around her shoulder after a moment, wrapping gently and slowly.

 

How did Sylvia still smell the same? How did that familiarity bring her back to a time where everything seemed to be working out time and time again?

 

***

 

Luke and Moira acted so overly friendly it was as if they were forever indebted to her. Maybe they just pitied her, but something about bringing June’s baby made them all act like they were her family. She wasn’t sure if she quite deserved that.

 

Moira told her about Odette. She hoped Moira felt the silent understanding. We, specifically, were tortured for our identities, and where is that anger to go now? She considered asking about whether or not Moira thinks she can ever love again after being invaded. If she could ever touch.

 

It's too hard to get the words out.

 

***

 

 Sylvia loves her despite it all. How could she ever forget?

 

The rambunctious social science undergrad from some small Saskatchewan town that Emily pretended to recognize the name of. When they first met, Sylvia continued to drag conversation out of the endlessly quiet Emily, making a ruckus in the corner of the library.

 

She made her coffee in the morning and rubbed her back when Emily leaned over a lab bench for too long. They made out obnoxiously at lesbian bars and watched all the documentaries they could find. Sylvia held her hair back when she vomited after too many tequila sunrises and let her cry on her shoulder when the instructors at school were tough. They grew older, settling into a more and more comforting home as the years went on, support unwavering.

 

It took a while of sleeping next to her nervously to realize that Sylvia didn’t expect anything from her. This would be okay forever.

 

She hadn’t been a real person for a while. She was a slave and a vagina and a worker. She was alive for what she could give to men.

 

It takes more reminding than it should to remember she's still loved.

 

Right then and there she wants to kiss Sylvia on the mouth and have sex with her. Grope her, touch her, taste her, roll around for hours in the sheets. Take control and bring herself to the edge so many times her head would spin, and she’d end up feeling like she was in another world.

 

But she can’t.

 

***

 

She kisses Sylvia on the mouth.

 

It was a particularly good day. She helped Oliver with his science homework, basic facts about animals and their habitats and he took her on a tangent of questions about the world and science. He was so curious and lovely. He called her mom again.

 

She tucked him in. He leaned on her shoulder and read her his favourite book.

 

It was a strange feat to make her feel so amazing that she could rule the world. She laid in bed with Sylvia and talked about their day and then she leaned in and pressed her lips to Sylvia’s.

 

It felt like the first time. But then, it was familiar. She’d never forgotten. She could never.

 

Then, she talks about the procedure. Her mutilation. The truth is spilling out of her mouth crudely and she can’t seem to stop herself even when Sylvia begins crying for her.

 

“They took my fucking clit. _She_ took my fucking clit. I put a knife in her back the day I escaped.”

 

_God is truly merciful. He offers redemption even to the most perverse and degenerate among his flock._

***

 

Sylvia has bad days too. Waking up and crying because she thinks Emily is still gone. Raped, tortured, or dead and never to return. It haunts her. Wondering if she is strong enough for Oliver if her wife never returns.

 

***

 

“Sex is more than that.”

 

Kissing Sylvia feels so good. As though she was made to lick her tongue inside and bite her lips, rubbing her chest up against Sylvia. That always got her going until—gentler than ever—Sylvia starts leading Emily to bed and deepening it all, carefully letting her hands wander.

 

She had almost forgotten. Sex has been ripped away from her.

 

“Vulva’s are a big part of sex,” Emily replies sarcastically.

 

“Is it the only part you ever enjoyed?”

 

Emily refuses to reply. She crosses her arms in defiance, aiming her frustrations in a glare at Sylvia. The hand that innocently touches her thigh feels like a bee sting and she slaps it away.

 

She sleeps on the couch that night, wishing no one would ever touch her again.

 

***

 

Moira has a girl over for dinner. The glances they sneak at each other are telling enough. Emily is watching them when the girl puts a hand on Moira’s lower back and Moira flinches.

 

She hates that it’s become instinct, ingrained beneath the skin to cause panic at every touch. She fucking hates it. It can't fucking control her life still.

 

***

 

They light candles, lovely lavender and fruit that dances against the walls in warm hues. She had always been indulgent and stereotypical.

 

_“I want to try it. But it might take more time,” Emily said._

_“I know.”_

They kiss for a long time. This could go on forever, Emily knows, drinking in each other until she pushes it along. She has the control.

 

She unbuttons the tight blouse off of Sylvia, grateful to have warm, soft skin against her hands. A soft bra with lace travelling up cleavage fills her hands. She missed these simple things, her heart beating faster at every touch.

 

She works off Sylvia’s pants, bra and panties, looking at the expanse of skin in front of her. The vulnerability in front of her. She put her hand onto the warm dampness of her crotch, moving her hand around but not getting Sylvia off. Sylvia, ever so patient, stares up at her in endearment.

 

Soft skin, bulging curves, stretch marks, thin hair and an encouraging smile in front of her. A woman, in her arms.

 

She pulls her own sweater over her head, baggy over her thin, still relatively malnourished, build. She pushes off her jeans and lays down.

 

“I want to make you feel good in any way.” Sylvia says, putting her hands over Emily’s shoulders and digging her fingers into the tense skin. “Massaging all your sore muscles until you feel like a cloud.”

 

She stares into the brown eyes before her, warm and endless.

 

Sylvia’s hands loosen up and trail her skin gently, nails lightly scratching up Emily’s neck in a trail of sparks that make goosebumps rise on her skin.

 

“Touch all your erogenous spots. Your neck. Your hips.” Her hands trail down Emily’s torso, slow and soft until they circle around Emily’s hip bones, making her twitch.

 

“Nipples,” Sylvia said softly, looking up through her lashes in a silent question before she ducked her head and pulled Emily’s bra down. She kisses around Emily’s nipples, pressing into soft skin ever so gently, then put her lips around her areola, licking and sucking so carefully and slowly that Emily twitched more, bringing up her hands in case it became too much.

 

She lets out a sigh, letting it swarm her head.

 

They kissed and let hands travel over their bodies, massaging, scratching, tracing, pulling hair, kissing and sucking, until goosebumps were raised and bodies were relaxed. They crawled into the warm covers, a lovely cocoon after so much time, pressing their naked bodies together. Clinging onto each other like before.

 

***

 

Emily lays awake for a little while. Her body feels wonderful, light and nice. Spoiled, like it hasn’t been in a long time.

 

It feels too dangerous to enjoy. This could all be taken away at any moment. Sylvia raised up by a noose while she watches from the back of a van.

 

“You’re safe,” she whispers shakily, to no one but herself.

 

***

 

Moira and the girl didn’t work out. She wasn’t ready yet.

 

Emily and her walk through the cold Toronto air, crunching into powdery snow and clutching warm drinks.

 

Women are out walking all around them, talking into their phones formally and rushing into buildings, wearing pants that fit their asses, having conversations in obnoxiously loud volumes, laughing and chatting. Sounding bold and present. Emily and Moira still shrink into the shadows, as though they have to hide. 

 

Moira pulls her into a park with a fountain lined with faces in cheap picture frames and flowers with frozen petals. Both a reminder of what is happening and a reminder that they are on the other side.

 

They smile at each other, straightening their backs a little more.

 


End file.
